Mysticism as a Social Type of Christianity?

The topic of this chapter is neither a mystical author nor a mystical text. Instead I shall be investigating one particular example of how mysticism has been understood or constructed. Ernst Troeltsch’s interpretation of mysticism in his magisterial Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, which first appeared almost exactly 100 years ago,¹ has not been the most influential scholarly account of mysticism – in fact, Troeltsch was not a scholar of mysticism at all – but his theory can nevertheless help us understand some of the complexities surrounding the conceptualisation of this particular type of religiosity (although admittedly even the use of this word might already be considered problematic). At the same time, it raises interesting questions concerning the broader appeal of mysticism today. My interest is thus less in assessing the value of Troeltsch’s interpretation for, say, our understanding of medieval ‘mystical’ authors; rather I shall use him to illustrate certain long-standing and influential perceptions and preconceptions of this religious phenomenon. If successful, then, my contribution may serve a second-order discourse about modern, scholarly and popular, ideas of and fascinations for mysticism. These are, I shall argue following Troeltsch, closely related to some of the most fundamental transformations of religion under the conditions of modernity.